Technical Readout: Vehicle Annex, Revised Edition, and Other PDFs, Available

OnJanuary 14, 2013

MechWarriors receive all the glory; aerospace fighters are a close second; vehicles are considered the workhorses of any military; infantry are even given their day in the sun in the minds of the common citizen. But no battle could be waged, nor won, without the mammoth apparatus of support vehicles that feed the war machine of the Great Houses. From cargo trucks to tanker airships, airborne MASH to communications satellites, armored transport rails to coastal patrol boats, hauler exoskeletons to AgroMechs, even hover and wheeled police cruisers or civilian vehicles conscripted to the military: the support vehicle is the true backbone of any military machine.

Built using the construction rules in TechManual and Tactical Operations, BattleTech Technical Readout: Vehicle Annex provides a never-before-seen look at the support vehicles behind the militaries of every faction, as well as a slice of daily life in the BattleTech® universe. This revised edition has been updated with an overview of the Jihad and Republic era, up to 3084, covering its effects on support vehicle production and various efforts to use them as weapons of war.

For as long as there have been wars, mankind has been on a quest for ever more efficient means to kill. Yet even as the technologies improve, there are always missteps, unexpected—and, sometimes, unexplained—flaws in engineering that can transform a promising new weapon into a setback costing billions of credits, years of progress, and perhaps even a few lives.

Experimental Tech Readout: Boondoggles samples some of the most infamous failures in military experiments made by the Inner Sphere and Clan powers throughout history. Each design featured in this book demonstrates a disastrous (or merely abandoned) combination of prototype technology or engineering employed on BattleMechs, combat vehicles, and aerospace units from the Star League age to the Jihad era. Statistics and (where useful) Record Sheets are included for 14 BattleMechs, vehicles, and aerospace units presented in this book, ready to use (if possible) in advanced BattleTech games.

Since the coming of the Clans, the military, industrial, and command complexes of the Inner Sphere have raced against the invaders—and each other—to out-produce one another in battle-worthy manpower and materiel. Factories that were smashed in the Succession Wars were reborn and revitalized, churning out ever more cutting-edge equipment, while academies expanded their curriculums and sent generations of fresh warriors into battle. At the pinnacle of the arms race, new wars erupted, first against the Clans, and then between the Great Houses and Periphery states of the Inner Sphere. In the fires of the Word of Blake Jihad, destruction reached a level not seen since the early Succession Wars…but the stricken realms persevered.

Objectives: The Clans describes the state of the major factories, training centers, and command centers of the Clans in the wake of the events described in Jihad Hot Spots: Terra. Including detailed stats on every key system, this supplement also includes basic rules to help guide players in developing BattleTech scenarios focused on defending—or attacking—these critical sites.

Objectives: The Clans is an excellent resource for running a campaign set among the Clans with Total Warfare and A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG.

Since the coming of the Clans, the military, industrial, and command complexes of the Inner Sphere have raced against the invaders—and each other—to out-produce one another in battle-worthy manpower and materiel. Factories that were smashed in the Succession Wars were reborn and revitalized, churning out ever more cutting-edge equipment, while academies expanded their curricula and sent generations of fresh warriors into battle. At the pinnacle of the arms race, new wars erupted, first against the Clans, and then between the Great Houses and Periphery states of the Inner Sphere. In the fires of the Word of Blake Jihad, destruction reached a level not seen since the early Succession Wars…but the stricken realms persevered.

Objectives: Periphery describes the state of the major factories, training centers, and command centers of the Periphery in the wake of the events described in Jihad Hot Spots: Terra. Including detailed stats on every key system, this supplement also includes basic rules to help guide players in developing BattleTech scenarios focused on defending—or attacking—these critical sites.

Objectives: Periphery is an excellent resource for running a campaign set among the Periphery with Total Warfare and A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG.

Running a merc unit is a serious business first, last and always. Not just any group of gung-ho ‘Mech jocks can survive in the cutthroat world of the mercenary, and any MechWarrior who ignores this fact ends up working for someone else, dispossessed, or dead. Running a successful merc unit takes know-how, skill, careful planning, and sometimes a little luck. If you still think you’ve got what it takes to pit your skills against the fiercest warriors of the Inner Sphere and beyond, The Mercenary’s Handbook: 3055 is for you. The handbook provides a comprehensive, detailed system for creating, maintaining, and operating a mercenary unit in the BattleTech universe, covering every aspect of the mercenary life from combat to salary to medical care.

The Mercenary’s Handbook: 3055 also includes detailed briefings on five of the most renowned mercenary units of the Inner Sphere: Wolf’s Dragoons, the Kell Hounds, Rhonda Snord’s Irregulars, the Gray Death Legion, and the Black Thorns. So what are you waiting for? C-bills and glory await any MechWarrior bold enough to take them. But just remember, the battle’s not over until the check clears…

Note: This file is scanned from the original 1993 printing. It contains modified illustrations of BattleMechs that are not currently used in BattleTech.

Author Victor Milan passed away Feb. 13 in Albuquerque, N.M. following a short battle with cancer, his friends and fellow writers confirmed. He was 63.

Milan is best remembered by BattleTech fans as the author of three novels featuring the Camacho’s Caballeros mercenary unit, “Close Quarters,” “Hearts of Chaos,” and “Black Dragon” as well as a BattleCorps short story, “Callie’s Call.” He also penned a pair of Mechwarrior: Dark Age novels, “Flight of the Falcon” and “A Rending of Falcons.”

"News of Vic's passing really made my head spin this morning," BattleTech Line Developer Brent Evans said. "Victor was BattleTech family, and I always felt his contributions to the universe were huge. He had a way of bringing characters and conflicts to life that really resonated with the reader. I loved the variety of the Caballeros, the savagery of the Falcon books, and the voices he crafted for all those wonderfully flawed characters. In a universe of titans, he was one of the greats."

“When we relaunched the BattleTech fiction line, there were only a few names on my list for previous authors I wanted to bring back into the fold,” Helfers said. "Victor’s was near the very top. Although I knew him primarily through other IPs, the palpable fan reaction to the announcement of his return to BT fiction made me realize that we were doing something very special with him, and his excitement at revisiting the BT universe was just as great.

“Sadly, Victor passed away before he could finish his take on ‘Case White,’ which I’m sure would have been incredible. We have a partial manuscript in hand, however, and after a re-evaluation of the situation, I plan to take steps to have it completed by another author so we can bring Victor’s last BattleTech story to the fans. I just wish I could have helped him shepherd the rest of the novel to completion. And unfortunately, we will also have no more BattleTech stories from one of the true masters of the BT universe. R.I.P. Victor."

A prolific author with approximately 100 novels and numerous short stories to his name, he won the Prometheus Award in 1986 for “Cybernetic Samurai,” and was a central contributor to the long-running “Wild Cards” shared universe. More recently, he gained recognition for his series “The Dinosaur Lords."

A Twitter post by James S.A. Corey, the pen name of "The Expanse" writers Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, attributed Milan’s death to a “short but tough fight with cancer.”

In a blog post, George R.R. Martin remembered Milan’s “warmth, his wit, and his talent,” and credited him with being a key force in the creation of “Wild Cards.”

“In a sense he was the father of Wild Cards,” Martin wrote. “It was Vic who gave me the Superworld game as a birthday present back in 1983, and it was those long long nights of playing Superworld that eventually inspired me to start Wild Cards. Vic was an integral part of the series right from the very start, and the characters he created were among our most popular.”